If the meaning of cultured, as applied to people is: polite, well-spoken, generally civilised in discourse, then I wouldn't consider myself cultured (none of the above). But I definitely am a lover of culture - music, theatre, visual arts, written prose, dance. Anything from ancient times to the present day. The only thing missing for me is poetry. I've never been into it and I find it difficult, even daunting. And is poetry supposed to be read or spoken? This is Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003:
I'm also interested in the notion of the culture of a nation or a civilisation. What are those things which make up that culture? The arts obviously but much more - norms, behaviours, beliefs, customs, and values shared by the population perhaps.
Sean Bean says in Civilization VI: "The worth of a culture is not measured by its accomplishments but in how those accomplishments last and how they are remembered."
One of the problems with this is that measuring culture by longevity may devalue what that culture morphs into. The 2,000 year long ancient Greek culture was an icon of cultural greatness and you could argue that it survives to this day in our modern democracies but how fragile are those now? The Persians were the most powerful nation in the world for 200 years; a kingdom unified by Cyrus the Great and defined by leadership which respected the customs, beliefs and rights of conquered peoples. Are those 200 years less valuable than the 2,000 years of the Greeks?
If we look at our modern Western culture, how will our norms, behaviours, beliefs, values and customs stand up to the test of time? Even more importantly, to what extent are those shared by our increasingly fractured populations? I'm not sure how to describe our English culture, our British culture, our European culture or even if any of these actually exist.
We live in a time when every cultural norm is questioned, to an extent which hasn't been prevalent in any previous cultures. I suppose this in itself is an inevitable result of democracy, one which perhaps the Greeks (except for Plato - read on) didn't anticipate. Could it be that democracy is inherently unstable and cannot survive? Plato, in his Republic, postulates that democracy degenerates into tyranny where no one has discipline and society exists in chaos. Democracy is taken over by the longing for freedom. Power must be seized to maintain order. A champion will come along and experience power, which will cause him to become a tyrant.
Sound familiar? Plato clearly didn't have much time for the idea of democracy and his preference was for aristocracy, grounded in wisdom and reason and ruled by a philosopher king. I think our future Charles III might be attracted to that.
So cultures don't last but Sean Bean could be right to suggest that the longer a culture does last the more worthy it is. Except that, as in technological advance, there maybe an exponential decline in the amount of time required for change so maybe Persia's 200 years were equivalent to Greece's 2,000 years - and that means about 20 years today.
Our modern democracy probably only started in the early years of the 20th century with universal suffrage and so is a pretty recent phenomenon. It may be starting to decay but we can nevertheless see and value our cultural norms even though they may be transient.
Our (English/British/European/Western) culture is different today from what it was 20 years ago - in essence as well as in the engagement of the population - and it could be argued that the 20 year old culture didn't last and therefore wasn't worthy. But if you do argue that, you are effectively saying that there is no such thing as culture.
I believe my parents' post-war culture was defined by a respect for (maybe even deference towards) institutions - the monarchy, politicians, teachers, GPs who came to visit when you were sick - that doesn't exist today. Although those are not my cultural norms I still respect them for the time and context in which they existed. My parent's culture was as valid as mine is.
Indeed, I'm not sure that I personally have a culture.
So maybe the answer to the title question is still: No.
Good post!
ReplyDeleteJust two comments:
Poetry should be read. Most poets make a dog’s breakfast of reading their own work and actors can’t resist the soulful vicar voice. See examples of concrete poetry to realise why poetry must be seen.
As for culture the key indicator I think, is the food that is grown, prepared, shared and eaten. That tells you much more about a particular society than any number of films or novels.